Metropolis redux: the unique importance of library skills in informatics.

OBJECTIVES: The objective is to highlight the important role that librarians have in teaching within a successful medical informatics program. Librarians regularly utilize skills that, although not technology dependent, are essential to conducting computer-based research. The Metropolis analogy is used to introduce the part librarians play as informatics partners. Science fiction is a modern mythology that, beyond a technical exterior, has lasting value in its ability to reflect the human condition. The teaching of medical informatics, an intersection of technology and knowledge, is also most relevant when it transcends the operation of databases and systems. Librarians can teach students to understand, research, and utilize information beyond specific technologies. METHODS: A survey of twenty-six informatics programs was conducted during 2002, with specific emphasis on the role of the library service. RESULTS: The survey demonstrated that librarians currently do have a central role in informatics instruction, and that library-focused skills form a significant part of the curriculum in many of those programs. In addition, librarians have creative opportunities to enhance their involvement in informatics training. As a sample program in the study, the development of the informatics course at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences is included. CONCLUSIONS: Medical informatics training is a wonderful opportunity for librarians to collaborate with professionals from the sciences and other information disciplines. Librarians' unique combination of human research and technology skills provides a valuable contribution to any program.     

Hypersensitizing commercial panchromatic plates

Since ammonia, when added to the dye bath in preparing bathed plates, increases the sensitizing action of the dye, its action on commercial plates was investigated.In the course of the work three methods of sensitometry were used. Of these, one was used as a first qualitative test; the second, the spectrograph method, was used to study the effect of the ammonia on the sensitivity of the plate to each wave-length; the third, the Hurter and Driffield method, gives the absolute value of the speed of the plate.It was found that by bathing commercial panchromatic plates in a solution of 25 c.c. ethyl-alcohol, 75 c.c. water, and 3 c.c. of strong ammonia water (20 per cent. NH₃) for four minutes at 18° C. and drying rapidly, the speed to white light is increased 100 per cent. in nearly all cases, and the sensitivity in the red. extended one hundred or more Ångström units. The speed in the red is increased, in many cases, 400 per cent. If the plates be bathed without the alcohol (100 c.c. water, $\text{3}\text{1}\text{2}$ c.c. ammonia water) the speed is still more increased, but the plates should be used immediately after drying.Ordinary plates do not have their sensitivity appreciably changed. Most brands of orthochromatic plates are not improved, although one, the Cramer Trichromatic, showed the same increase as the panchromatic plate.     

Managing What We Can Measure: Quantifying the Susceptibility of Automated Scoring Systems to Gaming Behavior

As methods for automated scoring of constructed‐response items become more widely adopted in state assessments, and are used in more consequential operational configurations, it is critical that their susceptibility to gaming behavior be investigated and managed. This article provides a review of research relevant to how construct‐irrelevant response behavior may affect automated constructed‐response scoring, and aims to address a gap in that literature: the need to assess the degree of risk before operational launch. A general framework is proposed for evaluating susceptibility to gaming, and an initial empirical demonstration is presented using the open‐source short‐answer scoring engines from the Automated Student Assessment Prize (ASAP) Challenge.